Jim Allison lost his mother, a brother, two uncles and a cousin to cancer, but he says he never set out to find a cure for the disease.
Like many great scientists, he was driven by the selfish desire to be the first person on the planet to know something, as he explained to Houston Chronicle medical writer Todd Ackerman.
In the 1990s, Allisons development of an antibody that frees the bodys immune system to attack tumors revived the moribund field of immunotherapy, now taking its place alongside surgery, chemotherapy and radiation as a key weapon in treating cancer.